Spark of Power
by KrissyKat91
Summary: Long before the events of the movie, a WALL-E unit came into contact with an extraterrestrial artifact that changed him in ways no one could have imagined. Now, centuries later, alien mechanoids are coming to Earth, and Wall-E finds that he can't hide the power that's been within him for nearly 700 years any longer.
1. Cube

KrissyKat91: Can y'all tell I like Transformers?

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

* * *

Prologue: Cube

~dream sequence~

_Earth_

_2115 AD_

_The little robot stared at the metal cube, processors whirring, trying to decide if the strangely marked object it had found was something that needed to be compressed, or something that another of its kind had already gotten hold of._

_Finally, it gave up. According to its directive, if it was on the ground, it was trash, and had to be crushed._

_Rolling up to the cube, the little WALL-E unit reached out, intending to pull the object into its compactor._

_The shock wave from the explosion of pure energy carried for miles._

~end dream sequence~

_Earth_

_2820 AD_

Wall-E shook himself awake, then sighed. He hadn't dreamed about that day, ten years after the planet had been evacuated, in quite some time. Recent events, he suspected, had weakened his defenses against those memories.

He made a sound like a soft snort. Recent events, indeed. It had been five years since the "_Axiom_ Incident", as the humans called it, and he still considered it recent. Being so old must have skewed his perception of time.

Movement to his left drew his attention, and if Wall-E could have smiled, he would have. Five years together, and Eve was still just as beautiful as she'd been when he'd first seen her.

Reaching out, Wall-E lightly rested a hand on her side, careful not to wake her. He sighed happily as his advanced tactile sensors registered the familiar thrum of her power cells.

Unbeknownst to anyone on Earth, organic or otherwise, the rusty old trash collector who'd pulled them out of their mindless conformity was actually the most sophisticated mechanism on the planet.

When the boundless energy from the cube had relocated to his small body so long ago (leaving nothing behind but a shard of twisted, blackened metal that Wall-E kept hidden in his truck), it had reformatted him from the inside out, essentially turning him into a supercomputer on treads.

Being just a bit busy discovering that he was truly sentient (even sapient) instead of just a rolling trashcan, it had taken him a long time to realize what the energy was doing to him, and even longer to figure out how to stop it before it reached his outward appearance.

But stop it he had (though he'd seriously regretted _that_ particular decision when the _Axiom_ autopilot had tried to electrocute and then crush him), and no one was the wiser.

That was the way he wanted it. Though he himself knew and understood exactly what had happened to him, no one else would, and he didn't have the words necessary to explain.

He really needed to upgrade his speech capabilities a little at some point, Wall-E decided as he snuggled closer to Eve, settling back to sleep.


	2. Start

KrissyKat91: Figured I oughtta give y'all something.

* * *

Ch. 1: Start

_Earth_

_2820 AD_

"Hey, Wall-E!"

Wall-E looked up from where he was busily compacting what was left of the garbage into squares so the much larger WALL-A units could take them to the _Axiom's_ incinerator (tedious work, now that the humans were back, but somebody had to do it).

Zipping towards him on a hover-scooter (for the distances the humans' still somewhat pudgy legs couldn't quite manage) was John Abernathy, Wall-E's first human friend.

"John!" he squeaked, waving happily.

Pulling to a stop next to the little robot, John slid off the scooter.

"Hey, little buddy. How ya doing?"

"Good," he chirped, then gestured to the squares of trash. "Working."

John chuckled. "I can see that. Listen, the captain sent me out here to tell you he needs to talk to you." A Wall-E's vaguely worried look, he hastily added, "You're not in trouble. I think he just wants your opinion on something."

"'Oh-pin-ee-on'?" Wall-E repeated haltingly.

"Yeah. On what, I don't know. He already asked Eve about it, but didn't say what her answer was." Here he frowned. "She seemed kind of annoyed, though."

Wall-E straightened abruptly. That cinched it. If something was upsetting his girl, he needed to look into it.

"Going," he announced, dumping a half formed trash block out of his compactor.

"That's what I thought." Climbing back onto the scooter, John gestured to the extra space behind the seat. "Hop on. I'll give you a lift."

Obediently clambering up behind the human, Wall-E calculated how long it would take them to get to the _Axiom._ Taking all variables into account, it was still enough time to give his vocal processor a quick upgrade. He was learning new, more complex words every day, and it just couldn't handle them right now.

* * *

Wall-E sighed in relief as he rolled up to the entryway to the bridge, having finally escaped Mo's obsessive decontamination, then blinked when he spotted Eve floating just outside the door. Studying her for a moment, he quickly realized "annoyed" was an understatement. The white probe looked just south of livid.

"Ee-vah?" he asked softly. He could have said her name correctly, but saying it this way set her apart from the other probes, made her unique.

"Captain. Bridge," she grunted flatly. "Idea."

Wall-E blinked. Eve was upset because the captain had an idea? Odd. Not all his ideas were good (the pizza plant thing most readily came to mind), but Eve had never reacted quite like this before.

Turning, Wall-E started towards the bridge, stopping when Eve put a hand on his arm.

"Captain. Idea," she repeated. Then her eyes narrowed. _"Bad_ idea."

Wall-E blinked again, then nodded slowly.

Satisfied that she had made her point, Eve let go and took off down the hallway.

Wall-E stared after her for a moment, then continued on his way.

* * *

Churring softly to himself, Wall-E glanced around the bridge as he rolled in. The captain didn't seem to be in the room. Maybe he'd forgotten?

Wall-E started to turn around, then paused. There, hanging dormant from his pole, was the _Axiom's_ autopilot, Auto.

"Ooh," Wall-E murmured, rolling over to him. Though Auto had frightened him badly the day they'd met, the trash bot now thought he looked kind of pitiful.

Stretching up as far as he could, Wall-E brushed his flat digits over Auto's outer casing. Though the autopilot _looked_ offline, the little robot could feel the hum of energy that meant he could be reactivated at any time.

"Oh, Wall-E, there you are."

Startled, Wall-E jerked away, then turned to face Captain Ben McCrea. "Captain wanted talk?" he asked.

Instead of answering, the captain came to Wall-E's side. He, too, studied the dormant autopilot.

"Captain?" the robot asked.

"I already talked to Eve about this. She didn't like the idea."

Wall-E chirped questioningly.

"...I want to reactivate Auto."

Wall-E stared at him with open incredulity. "Reactivate?" he repeated.

If the captain was surprised by the trash bot's relative ease in pronouncing the four syllable word, he didn't show it.

"Yes, reactivate. Of course, I'd have him reprogrammed first, to have that A-113 thing removed, but I think he could be a big help to us." He paused, then added, "I also think he deserves a second chance."

Wall-E stared at him a moment longer, then turned his attention to Auto. Anyone looking at him would have thought he was in deep thought, but in truth he was running an in-depth scan on the autopilot's CPU. If A-113 was part of his core programming, then trying to remove it had the potential of driving the other robot insane.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case, so Wall-E turned back to the waiting captain. He had to know one other thing before he could give an answer.

"Auto friend?" he asked.

Captain McCrea stared at him blankly, obviously not getting it.

Wall-E tried again. Pointing at Auto, then at the captain, he repeated, "Auto friend?"

Understanding dawned. _"Oh!_ You mean, was Auto my friend?"

Wall-E nodded.

"Well, I don't know about him, but I like to think so."

That was all he needed to know. He rolled towards the door, pausing just before he left.

Looking back at the captain, he simply said, "Do it." Then he was gone.


	3. Surge

KrissyKat91: I'm still alive, if anyone was wondering. Sorry this is so short.

* * *

Ch. 2: Surge

_Earth_

_2820 AD_

"_WHAT?!"_

The furious scream carried for many a block, and all who heard it, human and robot alike, winced in sympathy for whoever was on the receiving end of Eve's (in)famous temper.

Wall-E, long since used to it, didn't even flinch.

"Why say yes?" Eve hissed. "Idea bad!"

"Auto Captain's friend," he answered. "Give second chance."

"Idea bad," Eve insisted. _"Auto_ bad!"

Wall-E shook his head. "A-113 bad, not Auto."

Eve threw her arms up in exasperation. "Wall-E impossible," she groaned, floating off.

Wall-E watched her go, then growled softly and headed away from the truck. He despised arguing with Eve, but she wasn't being fair. Freedom was the right of all sentient beings. He'd always believed that, and he always would.

The _"Axiom_ Incident" wasn't Auto's fault. A-113 had made him act that way. Now he was getting a second chance, and Eve was just going to have to deal with it.

* * *

In the dead of night, after everyone was asleep, Wall-E sneaked back aboard the _Axiom._

Those in the vast universe who understood what he was planning to do would have undoubtedly questioned the state of his sanity, but Wall-E didn't care. He'd told Eve he wanted Auto to have a second chance, and he fully intended to make sure the autopilot got that chance.

Captain McCrea had announced his intentions over the radio earlier in the day, and needless to say, it hadn't gone over well with many people. Wall-E was worried that someone might try to permanently deactivate the autopilot, and had decided to take measures to prevent it.

Slipping noiselessly onto the bridge, the trash bot rolled up to Auto. A quick scan informed him that the autopilot had already been reprogrammed. The captain must have decided to wait until the morning to reactivate him. That was fine with Wall-E. It would give Auto's systems a chance to adjust to the influx of power they were about to receive.

Wall-E pressed both hands together, carefully lining up his fingers. Pale cyan energy began to collect between them, and glowing, electric blue runes (the same runes that had been on the cube so long ago) appeared on the trash collector's outer casing.

Once he had enough energy, Wall-E formed it into an orb. Then, stretching up as far as he could, he opened his fingers towards Auto. As the orb floated out of his hands, he whispered, in an ancient, electronic language totally unknown to humanity, _"I give thee the gift of Spark, as it is mine to give. Bare it well, thou creation of man."_

The orb of blue light merged with the autopilot, releasing a surge of power that only the still-glowing WALL-E unit could feel.

Wall-E churred happily, his appearance returning to normal. That surge was a good thing. It meant Auto's systems had accepted the Spark, which would strengthen and reformat him to the point that the humans wouldn't be able to permanently deactivate him.

Humming one of his favorite songs, Wall-E exited the _Axiom._ Everything would be alright now.

Little did he know that, out in space, other beings would soon sense the power surge, and would set their sights on Earth.


End file.
